Always
by Adriana DiVolpe
Summary: Doctor and Donna one-shot - 'For all her anger, for all her fire, Donna Noble goes too gentle into that good night.'  Rating for language, blood, and character death.


**prompt: **_dying_**  
word count: **739

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_I been dreaming it forever  
It's easy to remember it  
It's always cold, it's always day  
You're always here  
You always say_  
"_I'm alright, I'll be okay  
If I can keep myself awake"_

_- Black Lab, 'Keep Myself Awake'_

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_Do not go gentle into that good night.  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light._

_- Dylan Thomas, 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'  


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**Always**

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_'Rage, rage against the dying of the light...'_

For all her anger, for all her fire, Donna Noble goes too gentle into that good night.

The last thing she says to him is, "Don't... worry... about... me... Space… man... You..."

It doesn't really matter what the rest of it was. It echoes until the words lose all meaning.

His hands are pressed against her chest, blood leaking through his fingers, seeping darkly across the layer of powdery snow covering the ground. Her life is creeping away from her inch by inch.

She lifts her head just enough to look at the hole in her chest. "You tryin' to cop a feel, Spaceman, hmm?" She tries to laugh but coughs blood all over his face instead.

"Nhhnn." She drops her head back into the snow.

"Don't move, Donna. Keep still." He fights to keep his voice steady and comforting. He can taste her blood.

"Flesh wound, eh, Donna? Like that Monty Python bit... With the knight... Black knight, I think... Might've been a white knight... Can't really remember now... Good bit... I like... I like the one with the... parrot... you know that one? And the parrot... The parrot's..."

Dead.

Dead.

Dying.

They're too far from the TARDIS. He can't leave her, and he can't take the pressure off the wound, and he can't save her.

She's dying.

"It's sort of cold here," she says with a shiver, cloud of breath rushing past the blood on her lips, and she does look pale, and it makes the blood stand out bright and brilliant and dark red against her skin. "Why couldn't you bring me to a nice place... Hmm? Lovely warm beach... Or somewhere... Tropical... Nice..." There's a horrible gurgling quality to her words, and she coughs again, spraying blood over her face, droplets spilling into her hair.

"Donna..." He doesn't know what to say.

" 'S okay," she reassures him, raising a hand to pat his arm and leaving a dark bloody smear across the sleeve of his coat. She looks at her hand as if she's only just seeing the blood.

The blood's dripping down her knuckles, trickling across her wrist.

She just watches it run down. She's always too calm, too accepting. He wants her to get angry, to scream at him, to tell him it's all his fault and he's a fucking—

"I'm sorry," she says instead.

He would have laughed if she weren't bleeding to death all over his fucking hands. "What for?" he tries to ask gently through gritted teeth.

"I said... I said 'forever'."

There's nothing he can say to that.

"Tell my mum I'm... I..."

"You'll tell her yourself," he lies, but it's not a lie, because it's true, because she's going to be fine, because she's going to walk away from this. He's not going to lose her like this, it's not going to end like this, it is _not_ going to—

"And my granddad..."

"Donna..." And he's biting his tongue so hard he can taste his own blood.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't supposed to be a beautiful Tuesday on a beautiful peaceful planet where nothing ever went wrong. It's never supposed to be, but it always is.

It's supposed to be him.

And she's looking up at him with the light fading from her eyes.

And it's Adric. And it's River.

"Donna, please. Please."

It's the Master.

He's pleading now, as if it's going to make a difference. It didn't the last time.

"Stay with me, Donna, you hear? Stay with me, just—"

She tries to smile. "Don't... worry... about... me... Space... man... You..."

"Donna, no! Donna—"

He knows that's it, and there's nothing else.

He says her name again, twice, eight times. But she doesn't respond. She never does.

He sits for a long time watching the snowflakes swirling in her hair. White on red.

Red on white.

It's everywhere. It's only now that he realises it's all over his hands, his clothes. His face.

He carries her back to the TARDIS dripping a trail of red in the perfect white snow.

It's four days later and no matter how hard he scrubs the blood won't come out from under his fingernails.

He can't look Sylvia in the eye with her daughter's blood on his hands.

And it's always when the first tears hit the water in the sink that he wakes up.


End file.
